Six week old chicks behaving like teens with attitude - Page 2

My chicks are almost 6 weeks old too and we finally got them to go in the coop on their own after 3 days of playing catch the chicken, and they would huddle in a corner of the coop pooping into their water. Ended up getting a battery powered night light that we stuck to the wall with Velcro tape inside the coop. At 8pm we turned on the light and lo and behold they all started marching up the ramp like little soldiers- well, drunk soldiers maybe, some would fall off and stop to have a snack before returning to the line. It went smoother the next day when we put a small bowl of breadcrumbs in the coop as a bribe. Maybe after growing up under the brooder lamp they were scared of being shut into a dark coop - now that I think of it, that's why they were all piled into the corner. With the night light now they can find their roosts and we have happy chicks again!

It's not the cold that I'm concerned about. It's the fact that a handful of them don't know to get back into the coop in the evening. They huddle under the coop as it gets dark rather than going in to roost. Our thought was they had no concept of day and night because they have always had the light from the heat lamps. We are shutting them in the coop and leaving the lights out in an attempt to teach them that as the sun goes down they need to get ready for bed. They have a very nice well insulated, ventilated, dry, clean large coop 8'×16'. I know it's not issues with the coop keeping them out so our thought is the lack of day/night concept is what's keeping them from going back in before it gets too dark. Our plan is to do this for a week then turn them out again.

Success! After only 3 night of having the lights out in the coop all the kids got themselves tucked in at 8:30. It was a little concerning the last half hour. 1 would go in 3 would come back out but as time went on they all made it back in.

Again, the issue we were having was that a handful of chicks would not return to the coop and would try and nest under the coop because it was so dark outside. Our chicks at 6 weeks had never been in the dark and had no concept of day/night. For the past 3 nights we kept all the lights out for several hours then turned on a heat lamp as it was below freezing. Last night was lights out all night. We belive they grasped the concept of day/night. I hope this may help others with similar issues